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While dozens of British museums are facing closure due to public service cuts, the contribution of British taxpayers to the building of the House of European History will be around £18.6million.

While the museum is intended to ‘cultivate the memory of European history’, it will begin with a European Union ‘year zero’ of 1946 as MEPs are unable to agree over fundamental historical details, including events in the Second World War.

Critic: Ukip MEP Marta Andreasen said the House of European History is 'narcissistic' and has been authorised after a conflict of interests

Ukip MEP Marta Andreasen, who voted against the museum, said: ‘It defies both belief and logic that in this age of austerity MEPs have the vast sums of money to fund this grossly narcissistic project.

‘Worst of all is that the chairman of the committee responsible for giving the go-ahead to the project sits on its board of trustees.

‘In any other parliament such a clear conflict of interests would not be tolerated.’

European Parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering said earlier this year that the museum would be a 'locus for history and for the future where the concept of the European idea can grow'.

But varied national perspectives on the continent's history means the project had controversial even before today's revelation of its extortionate cost.

European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering wants the controversial museum to 'cultivate the memory of European history'

Polish MEP Adam Bielan, a vice-chairman of the European Parliament, was critical of a promotional document for the museum that implied 'the last Polish resistance was snuffed out in 1939'.

'This is not true,' he wrote in a letter co-signed by 12 other MEPs.

'Polish soldiers fought in France in 1940, in the Battle of Britain, the Middle East, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands as well as alongside the Soviet Army on the eastern front.

'The Polish underground resistance continued from 1939 to 1945, its major operation being the Warsaw uprising of 1944. The overall number of Polish troops mobilised during World War Two was comparable to that of France.'

Eastern European MEPs are unhappy with planned exhibits that imply elections to the EU assembly in 1979 indirectly led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Belgian centre-right MEP Derk Jan Eppink said last month: 'Nobody wants to be involved in this, when people cannot even agree what happened in the last war.

'It is self-aggrandisement at the expense of the taxpayer. If the parliament wants this project then it should get donations from Federalists, well paid MEPs themselves or companies who want to support it.'

News of the spiralling costs of the museum come as the EU asked Formula One authorities to consider plans for electric-car racing.

FIA president Jean Todt said new electric cars could race on Grand Prix circuits from 2012 but Ukip have said the plans are ‘absolutely bonkers’.

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'House of European History' to cost Britons £19m after building expenses double